Learning how to clean your beard is quite like understanding how to train a dragon. It takes a lot of patience. The whole beard process is a complicated and long endeavor.

The first steps towards beard development can lead any potential face stylist to patiently waiting for 15-25 years for the body to develop. There is no magical formula that hasn’t been tried, nor any other stone left unturned.

It doesn’t change the answer, the body won’t start developing facial hair for you to clean until it’s good and ready. Once the first few spots start to appear, you might think you’re in the clear, and start passionately breaking out the clippers.

Who amongst us beard groomers didn’t try to grow it out for the first time before it was ready, leaving a patch of neck fur or perhaps nothing more than a splash of color above the upper lip. Beards take years, and the mistakes and obstacles we cross along the way with our facial hair are just as much a part of our development as anything.

Finally, the glory years are among you. A full-bodied, ash or oak colored welcome mat has made it evenly from sideburn to sideburn, cheek to cheek. Now, what!?

Once your years of struggle have come to fruition, and your full beard is feeling polished, you’ll instantly feel at home. You’ll never want it any other way. However, the intense technique and training regimen required to properly clean facial hair isn’t something that comes along overnight.

Further exasperating the matter is the fact that we have just spent the last 20 years not having to worry about this particular aspect of face washing. Even the earliest cavemen, with antiquated hygiene ideals, knew they had to clean beards.

Some of the first known cave art, discovered by Roger Gillette, was a step-by-step rock carving diagram attempting to answer the classic caveman grunt ‘how to clean beard.’

The technique has changed greatly since then, as the only tool available to our prehistoric brothers were rocks and fire, but the mindset has stayed the same. Too many men wake up in the morning only to stare at themselves in the mirror and wonder, “how to wash beard?”

We didn’t come this far to let our facial hair control us, so a handpicked team of experts crossed the seven seas and examined facial hair from Myanmar to Miami to unlock new beard grooming standards. Here is what they discovered.

A clean beard is a clean mind. Clean beards have been known to solve crimes, improve mental function by as much as 15%, and look damn good in a Christmas card photo. A proper combing, wax job, and post clean fluff are paramount to a proper tinder photo.

The importance of cleaning a beard is obvious, but to know the best way to wash your beard, you must first understand what to wash your beard with. For beard washing basics, you can probably get away with any old soap and water combination.

These products stop short of the goal line as they have been known to eliminate all of the beard’s oils, good and bad. Too much oil will leave much to be desired from the washing beard walkthrough in your morning routine.

Beard Shampoo

You’re not here to do the bare minimum, you’re here to understand the best way to wash beards. To look the best, any facial hair shaper would benefit from a bonafide beard cleaner. A shampoo made for beards is in your future.

 If you want a shining beard from ear to ear, most likely there is a product out there that works for you. Making the topic ever more essential is the threat of a dry beard. Improper beard grooming techniques can dry out the hair and give your face a coarse feeling.

Don’t fret, my harsh faced friends! Beard care products have been developed beyond our wildest dreams. The typical go-to cleanser for a first clean facial hair attempt is a mild beard wash.

These products stick out from regular face and body cleansers by being designed to comfort the face and the beard. That means they politely comfort your face, clean your beard, and leave some natural hair oils on for good measure.

Beard Oil

The other product you might want to look for to monitor your luscious locks is beard oil. Adding this step into your self-care routine shifts the user from defensive into offensive.

Beard oil has a plethora of benefits for your face. That alone should be enough to convince you, but if you’re still on the fence take a good hard look at your prized beard.

Does it feel as whole, soft as the other side of the pillow, and responsible? Is it taking the shape you want it to? Can it be more?

These are all things accomplished by a proper beard oil. It can even help grow your beard out further. As the cherry on top, a beard oil leaves a smell almost guaranteed to smell better than whatever you ate last.

A combination of coconut/sunflower oil and a splash of essential oils can do wonders for the particulars of any beard in development. The devil is in the details, and although it may not seem like a huge deal, a shiny front can make all the difference.

Run out and grab a combination of oils and lathers that work for you. Talk to your local dermatologist about the best products currently on the market, or head up to any facial haired fellow you come across in your day to day life.

Odds are, most folks you know glorious frontal flow achieved that luminosity with the help of beard cleaner. Castaway’s own Tom Hanks even used coconut powder to make his beard the fullest, and there was no one else around for miles.

Related: The Best Beard Oils

Now that you have your various lotions and potions, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty. Don’t go running into the bathroom with the cream out and nothing else though, cowboy. Cleaning your beard starts with cleaning yourself.

A proper shower is the first step towards understanding how to wash your beard. The best way to wash your beard is to get it prepared with a nice rinse. Once you’ve finished your various shower chores, stay in the healing waters a few minutes longer to focus on your facial hair.

Bring a comb or brush in with you and start working out any kinks showing up on your facial hair. Work water through it to eliminate any surface dirt and get your beard ready for the job ahead.

While you wash your beard, try to decide what you want the next iteration of your facial hair to accomplish. If you want it to spread like wildfire, you’ll approach washing beards differently than if you are trying to keep it calm and maintained.

The first steps of beard maintenance can be accomplished inside the shower or without. Since this particular rumination involves solely washing the beard, we’ll examine the phenomenon from outside the shower.

If you’re thinking, ‘but wait! I was hoping to learn how to properly take a shower too,’ maybe you should focus on learning that before getting into beard maintenance. We simply can’t learn everything at once.

Clean facial hair sends a message, a message that starts with shampoo. Wash your beard thoroughly with the beard shampoo of your choice, ensuring you coat the beard in all tough to reach places.

It is highly recommended to keep a bit of dampness from your shower in your beard for this step. A splash of water helps the shampoo’s soaps and oils mix in naturally and makes it easier to remove excess beard cleaner.

Shampooing your beard is the bare minimum standard for clean beards. This technique should be applied several times a week, depending on what sort of toxins your beard gets involved with.

Just like shampooing your hair, shampooing your beard should become as strong a habit as brushing your teeth. Be sure to hit every inch of your beard with a shampoo specifically designed as a beard cleaner, as we stressed earlier.

Using regular hair shampoo on your beard will result in flakey, dry skin underneath your beard that will eventually work its way to the public eye. Having to worry about dandruff flakes on top of your head is enough to deal with, no need to make it snow from your chin as well.

If you find yourself sweating, working outdoors, or just generally getting dirty, you should look to wash your beard about every other day. As long as you are using high-quality equipment made for the job, it’s difficult to wash your beard too much.

However, only you can know what is truly right for your beard. Climate, water quality, and other distinguishing factors will make every beard grower’s journey different.

When you begin to explore washing your beard, craft a chart of beard washing days and their lasting effects. If you find yourself only needing one washing a week to leave your beard shiny and sleek, congratulations.

Simply put, the best way to wash your beard starts with shampoo. How much and how often you use it is up to you. Most beard cleaners on the market offer simple instructions. Once the beard is lathered in, let it sit and soak in each other’s warmth for a few seconds, and begin to rinse.

Most experts who ponder how to clean a beard gloss over shampoos resting time inside the actual facial hair, but some argue that’s where the key lies.

Keep the shampoo in your beard for 30 seconds to a minute, and when in doubt increase the length of time the shampoo stays in contact with your furry face. It’s a nice gesture to your body to give it time to absorb and appreciate the bounty it’s receiving.

Once you get comfortable with this crucial step, try to incorporate it as part of your shower routine.

Finally, make sure you rinse all the shampoo out, even on the underside of your fluff. Once you get in this habit, keep your beard shampoos on a nice regular schedule for the best results.

Simply using beard shampoo should be good enough for most of us, but particularly coarse corsairs with facial hair may want to take a step further and apply beard conditioner.

Special beard conditioners are out there and have been claimed by some itchy users as the key to their facial bounty. These conditioners are specifically geared towards combating abrasive hairs and adding an extra moisturizing boost to the skin underneath.

If you are committed to your search for the best way to wash a beard, you can’t go wrong giving this step a try too. It is even more essential when using a beard conditioner to let it sit and rest from your chin to your chest if necessary.

The next step will depend on your specific product. If you are planning on using beard oil in your washing routine, as is recommended by 4 out of 5 dentists in the area, ensure your product is not a leave-in beard conditioner and wash it out fully.

If you do have a leave-in conditioner, talk to your doctor about the best ways to combine the effects of beard oil and beard conditioners, or just wing it and see how it goes.

The whole process is open to interpretation, and you should be carving out a few weeks to experiment with the various methods in play until you find the combination that works best for you.

There are no wrong answers in love and beard trimming, so don’t be afraid to break the mold and find the technique and combination that works for you. The only harmful thing you can do to your beard is not trying to make it the best it can be.

Here’s where things get interesting. While specific cases call for increased shampoos, it is always good to remember to avoid washing your beard too much. There is always a threat that over-washing your beard could lead to drying your skin and beard hair out, the opposite effect the treatment is supposed to bring.

Once you start cleaning your beard, it’s hard to stop. That feeling of freshness is hard to beat. You must keep a solid track of your beard washing so you can better understand the pattern that will work for you.

Simply going for gusto can lead to the opposite effects.

 Next, we’ll look towards getting rid of any trouble spots that stick around after the shampoo and conditioner take effect. Blemishes make us human and give us personalization, but some stains aren’t meant to be.

At home, concoctions take on this chapter in the washing beard journey, specifically if you’re learning how to clean up beards that have food or any stains marking them. It doesn’t have to be a fancy potion to get those stains in motion.

Simply find some baking soda, in the baking section at any local grocery store, and combine two spoonfuls with four spoons of water. Stir the combination well and let it rest until it forms into a half hardened thick paste.

Apply this mixture as a spot treatment around the areas that need help. Don’t worry if it overspreads a touch here or there, the mixture will have no negative impact on your beard’s natural color. Once they’re good and rubbed in, rinse the mixture and thank yourself for taking the time to care.

The final beard washing step involves breaking out the beard oil. Any particular manufacturer will have their instructions for the best way to wash beards with their product, but clean facial hair awaits anyone following this step no matter what product they use.

Beard oil is designed to be the last step in the process as it allows the user to keep the beard oil in your beard while you go about your day. Some beard oils work best when applied every day, while others are more weekly.

Typically, any beard oil that is best-used every day is the option you should take if you are looking for a product that gives your beard a specific style. If you’ve got random hairs poking out and want to advertise yourself with a matte finish, beard oils can take care of that for you.

Other beard oils that can be used simply weekly are best used as therapeutic steps. Oils designed to bring moisture and fullness back to the face fall into this category, as wells oils designed to make your beard appear more polished and complete.

Whichever oil you choose, find the pattern that works for you and stick with it. Washing beards can be fun, especially if your loved ones appreciate clean facial hair. Beard cleaning is the most important step to take towards controlling the beast emanating from your chin.

These techniques can also be applied when you are looking to understand how to clean up a beard after a trim. Trimming your beard can slide into this process with ease, and by some would be considered a step in the best ways to washing beards.

When looking to combine a beard cleaning with beard trimming, take the first few steps outlined above, namely shampooing and conditioning your beard before you begin trimming.

Especially if you have been neglecting cleaning your beard for a while, your beard will take on a completely different shape after a thorough washing. It could grow out or coil up, greatly changing the shape of the beard.

Nobody wants to go through all the work of meticulously trimming their prized facial hair, only to discover that once it’s been cleaned it takes on a new shape incompatible with the design mapped out.

Beard cleaning is a necessary evil of any facial hair owner, but don’t look at it as a chore. When you’re starting, make sure that the times you choose to wash your beard are moments of tranquility, when you’re in no rush to get anywhere else.

Ensure you have prepared a space properly programmed to increase productivity. Simple steps such as putting on your favorite relaxing music, shifting up any harsh LED lighting, or even lighting a candle can help you enter the process with a positive state of mind.

Don’t gloss over this bit of beard maintenance either. You may see photos of Hollywood’s Haggard stars sporting rocking beards and think that not much went into prospecting and procuring such a powerful piece of facial hair, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Anyone with a beard long enough to mean something has done something to help take care of it.

This information doesn’t apply solely to beards, either. If you are sporting a mustache of thick and heavy sideburns, the same care techniques apply to these accouterments as well.

If a mustache is your facial hair of choice, focus extra attention on the beard oil aspect of your process. A mustache oil will help keep all the hairs in line, which is imperative when your hairs are getting close to your nose.

Improperly maintained mustache hairs will lead to sneezy afternoons, so act quickly. After applying a generous amount of mustache oil to the troubled stache, find a thick-haired brush to tone down the locks.

Alternatively, this mustache oil can be used to curl up the edges, or create any other wicked style you feel is necessary.

There you have it, a complete step-by-step guide to learning how to clean up a beard. Next time you’re out shopping, take some time in the grooming aisle to find the products that are right for you and get ready to rumble.

Whether it be winter, spring, or summer beards have refused to head out of style. Not every man can grow a beard and those who can have a responsibility to maintain the good standing beard wearer’s yield in the world as a whole.

So next time you’re wondering what you can do to boost your self-image, look no further than what’s right in front, or rather below, your eyes.